Discusses the need for the availability of measures of variables which assess marital quality, reviews the history of measurement in this area, identifies some conceptual and methodological issues of relevance, and then focuses most specifically on the Dyadic Adjustment Scale developed by Spanier. (Author)

Used the 1980 Current Population Survey to highlight differentials in life-course events of American women born during the first half of the 20th century. Results indicated blacks have greater variation than whites around nearly all life-course events studied, but the overall level of variation among both blacks and whites has been declining…

Used data from the 1980 Current Population Survey to contrast married and unmarried couples living together. Profiles social and economic characteristics of couples, as well as the joint age, racial, educational, employment, and marital-status characteristics of married and unmarried partners. (Author/JAC)

Evaluated the dyadic adjustment scale by reconsidering the factor structure of the scale and its subscales using a maximum likelihood, confirmatory factor-analysis procedure. Studied a new sample from the same geographical area. High reliability was confirmed for the overall scale. (Author)

Marital adjustment over the family life cycle is reexamined using data from probability samples of married couples studied in coordinated research projects in three different states--Iowa, Ohio, and Georgia. A total of 1,584 respondents completed the Locke-Wallace Marital Adjustment Scale and responded to questions about stage of the family life…

This study reports on the development of the Dyadic Adjustment Scale, a new measure for assessing the quality of marriage and other similar dyads. This factor analytic study suggests four empirically verified components of dyadic adjustment to be used as subscales (dyadic satisfaction, dyadic cohesion, dyadic consensus and affectional expression).…

Marital adjustment over the family life cycle is reexamined using data from probability samples of married couples studied in coordinated research projects in three different states--Iowa, Ohio, and Georgia. (Author)

Examined the circumstances surrounding marriage termination in relation to the aftermath of marital separation. Collected data from a nonprobability sample of 205 individuals. Multiple regression analysis demonstrated that 41 percent of the variance in acceptance of marital termination can be explained by marital history variables. (Author/RC)

Sketching trends in marriage, divorce, and children's lives, the author predicts that leading topics of family researchers in the 1980s will include family violence, the quality of marital and parent/child relationships, divorce and remarriage, fertility, dual career families, and family demography. Adapted from "The Wilson Quarterly," Summer…

The decade of the 70s saw more husbands in samples, more attention to couples, use of observational data collection techniques, greater attention to methodological and measurement issues, biases in the portrayal of sex roles, attempts to build theory and synthesize the literature, growing interest in "dyads," and more international research.…

Studied separation, divorce, and the postponement of marriage which have nearly doubled the number of adults who keep up a home without a spouse since 1970. Assesses teenage marriages as particularly unstable. Discusses other variables including children's sex, mother's education level, custody, and remarriage. (Author/JAC)